The Equifax ScoreWatch™ is a credit monitoring service provided by equifax, one of the three major credit bureaus. Each bureau, the other two being TransUnion and Experian, have their own monitoring service. And they all come with different bells and whistles. Let’s look at this one provided by Equifax.

Basic Credit Monitoring of Your Experian Credit Report and Score – With this service Equifax will monitor your Equifax Credit Report and Equifax FICO® score. You will get notification of any major changes in your Equifax report or score via email or wireless alerts. In addition, you will get the following service.

Monthly Fees – The cost for this service is $9.95 a month.

How Does this compare with other credit monitoring service? – Well, there essentially two types of credit monitoring services. The first type simply monitors just one report (from that particular credit bureaus. The second type monitors all three credit bureaus.

Comparison with TransUnion credit monitoring service – Experian does not have a single bureau credit monitoring service, but TransUnion does. The difference between TransUnion’s monitoring service and Equifax is that TranUnion gives you unlimited access to your credit report. You also have $25,000 insurance for ID theft. But you cannot see your TransUnion score and you do not get alerts when you score changes. The cost is also higher at $11.95.

Comparison with 3-in-1 monitoring services – For those interested in monitoring your credit report constantly, chances are that you would prefer a service that monitors all three credit bureau reports. Equifax has their own Equifax Credit Watch™ Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring, which monitors and alerts you to changes in all three credit reports but not your score. In addition, you will get unlimited access to your Equifax credit report and $1,000,000 in ID theft insurance. The cost is $12.95 a month for this service.

TransUnion also has their equivalent of 3-in-1 credit monitoring service that comes at a price of $14.95 a month. Experian has a similar deal.

Verdict – One of the things that I really like about the Equifax ScoreWatch™ is that you can access your Equifax score twice a year (rather for 60 days). This feature is absent for example in TransUnion’s own credit monitoring service. However, I suspect that that those who are really interested in monitoring their credit would want to do so with all three credit bureaus rather than just one. If that is the case, then I would suggest you try the Equifax Credit Watch™ Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring. It cost a bit more ($12.95 a month rather $9.95) and you cannot see your scores. But for credit monitoring purposes, it is cheaper than the alternatives offered by TransUnion and Experian.